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APRIL: Riau, Sumatra's Biggest Forest Pulper 2009 to 2012

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APRIL: Riau, Sumatra's Biggest Forest Pulper 2009 to 2012 Asia Pacific Resources International Limited (APRIL): Riau, Sumatra’s biggest forest pulper 2009 to 2012 questionable legality, social conflicts and global warming Investigative Report Eyes on the Forest Published in December 2012 Eyes on the Forest (EoF) is a coalition of environmental NGOs in Riau, Sumatra: Friends of the Earth “Walhi” Riau Office, Jikalahari "Riau Forest Rescue Network" and WWF-Indonesia, Riau Program. EoF monitors the status of the remaining natural forests in Sumatra's Province of Riau and disseminates the information worldwide. More news on Eyes on the Forest, go to: http://www.eyesontheforest.or.id Email: editor(at)eyesontheforest.or.id Front cover Photo on top: Stacks of mixed tropical hardwood (MTH) after large-scale clearance of natural forest by PT. Riau Andalan Pulp & Paper (RAPP), a wood supplying subsidiary of Asia Pacific Resources International Limited (APRIL). Photo taken on Kampar Peninsula in Riau, Sumatra by Eyes on the Forest at N0°20'18.29" E102°46'5.88" on 21 February 2012. Photo on bottom left: Natural forest clearance by APRIL wood supplier PT. Triomas FDI in Kampar Peninsula. Photo taken by Eyes on the Forest on 30 May 2012. Photo on bottom right: Peat drainage canal and stacks of MTH harvested from forest clearance by APRIL wood supplier PT. RAPP in Kampar peninsula. Some CITES-protected ramin trees were “saved” and left standing. Photo taken by Eyes on the Forest at N°17’52.36” E102°43’22.29” on 10 February 2012. Summary • Despite being in business for 17 years and having access to pulpwood supply concessions covering more than 10% of Riau province’s landmass (940,000 hectares), APRIL has continued to rely on clearance of natural forest for its pulping business as late as this year, 2012. • APRIL’s public commitment to sustainable and natural fiber free operations after 2009 was pure sales talk; greenwashing to win back customers who had left the company due to its dismal sustainability record. Any statements on environmental sustainability made by APRIL today must be viewed with the highest possible skepticism and should not be taken at face value. • At least 140,000 hectares of natural forest were lost in all APRIL supplier concessions between 2008/2009 and 2011 in Riau; equivalent to the loss of 5% of the natural forest remaining in 2008/2009 and 27% of the total forest lost between 2008/9 and 2011. • APRIL knowingly pulped natural forest wood from concessions whose licenses were issued through corrupt practices. Ten of twelve APRIL wood suppliers operating in the company’s main wood supply area, Riau Province’s deep peat Kampar Peninsula, obtained their licenses from the heads of Siak and Pelalawan district. Both were convicted in high profile cases for corrupt practices in issuing these licenses and are currently in prison. APRIL suppliers also received annual cutting licenses from three Riau Forestry Agency chiefs who since then have been sentenced to prison terms for graft by the corruption court. • APRIL wood suppliers are believed to have cleared natural forests inside “National Protection Areas” in violation of Government Regulation 26/2008. Indonesian TEMPO magazine reported that the Indonesian Ministry of Environment plans a civil law suit against – among others - six APRIL wood suppliers for allegedly causing environmental destruction. Indonesia’s Judicial Mafia Eradication Task Force estimated that the 14 companies to be named in the law suit caused a more than 2,067 trillion rupiah (US$217 billion) loss to the state. • APRIL lost its interim “FSC Controlled Wood” certificate for non compliance in 2010 after an audit by the Rainforest Alliance. APRIL supplier PT. Sumatera Riang Lestari (SRL) was refused Timber Legality Verification System (SVLK) certification in May 2011 by auditor PT. Sarbi International Certification and only received partial certification for selected concession blocks after it filed for reassessment excluding the two blocks that failed to pass the legality verification. • The clearance of deep peat swamp forests in Riau’s Kampar Peninsula and islands of Riau’s coast has generated long-lasting, wide-spread, and widely covered social conflicts between local ccommunities and APRIL wood suppliers, including corporate flagship PT. RAPP (Riau Andalan Pulp & Paper) and PT. SRL. The issues focus on loss of control over traditionally owned forests and land and degradation of natural resources. A desperate protest by residents of Pulau Padang who sewed their mouths shut in January 2012 stopped PT. RAPP from operating their concession there. • APRIL’s corporate wood supply strategy appears based on production on peat soil where 69% of its concession areas are located. APRIL’s acceleration of peat soil drainage and peat forest pulping likely led to a steep, long-lasting increase of GHG emissions from the landscape and thus appears like a slap in the face of the President of Indonesia’s global commitment to dramatic emissions reductions. 1 | EoF (December 2012) APRIL: Riau, Sumatra’s biggest forest pulper 2009 to 2012. • Since 2005, APRIL has been promising its buyers, investors and the general public that the company will protect High Conservation Value Forests. Most of the natural forest cleared by APRIL’s wood suppliers since 2009 would likely be considered High Conservation Value Forest. These forests are potential habitat of critically endangered Sumatran tigers and Sumatran elephants and are critically endangered and endangered “eco-floristic sectors”. • APRIL appears to consider the conversion of large stretches of tropical forests as an essential business practice: “This relates to direct or indirect involvement in the significant conversion of forests to plantations, which is an essential step for APRIL Indonesia in our process of establishing renewable plantation fibre supplies ...” In fact, 2009, the year in which APRIL had committed to become MTH-free, appears to have been the beginning of an all-out assault on Sumatra’s most precious peat forests and with it the global climate. What remains are the same old statements left for display on the corporate web page and the archives of the Internet, continuing to try and greenwash APRIL’s operations. • Eyes on the Forest calls on APRIL/RGE to stop destroying peat and pulping natural forest fibre and not expand its pulp production capacity until a sustainable wood supply has been verified by an independent third party. • Eyes on the Forest recommends that APRIL buyers and other business partners avoid being associated with the tropical forest and peat destruction of APRIL and its associated business entities and not let themselves be trapped by the company’s greenwashing campaigns. 2 | EoF (December 2012) APRIL: Riau, Sumatra’s biggest forest pulper 2009 to 2012. Introduction: Business as usual deforestation and peat destruction by APRIL APRIL (Asia Pacific Resources International Limited1) of the Royal Golden Eagle 2 group is a Singaporean company with pulp and paper mills in Indonesia and China. In 2011, APRIL considered its Riau, Sumatra mill “the biggest mill on the planet” with a production of “3.5 million tons of pulp and paper”3. APRIL started commercial pulp production in 1995. It focuses on selling pulp globally but also started paper production in 1998 4. Its flagship line is “PaperOne” brand office paper 5. UPM-Kymmene 6, 7 and Fuji Xerox 8, 9 had been some of the company’s most prominent customers before they cancelled their contracts as reports on APRIL’s indiscriminate destruction of tropical rainforest became public 10 . In 2004, APRIL advertised globally that it would be free of natural forest wood by 2009: “By the year 2009 we will have sufficient Acacia from our own and our partners’ fiber plantations to produce 2 million tons of pulp which is the production capacity of our mill.” 11 Yet, despite the public commitment, Eyes on the Forest 12, 13 had to report in 2010 that APRIL’s wood suppliers had applied for and had received new “annual cutting licenses (RKT)” in 2009 and 2010. They allowed APRIL’s suppliers to: • Clear 74,099 and 71,125 hectares of natural tropical forest, respectively. These numbers show the magnitude of APRIL’s deforestation operations. Each year’s licenses allowed the company to pulp an area of tropical forest larger than the whole country of Singapore, the headquarter of APRIL’s operations. • Clear tropical forest with an average official timber yield of 118 and 90 m 3/ha, respectively. Such yields prove that APRIL did not clear marginal or degraded lands but good natural forests with a powerful potential to sequester carbon, if protected and given the chance to fill out. • Harvest 8.5 and 6.3 million m 3 of mixed tropical hardwood (MTH), respectively. These volumes show the absolute dependence of APRIL’s operations on deforestation until today. They represented 84% and 50% of the raw material needs of APRIL’s Riau mill, assuming the mill still produced two million tons of pulp per year at the time. 2010 was also the year when the Rainforest Alliance cancelled APRIL’s interim “FSC Controlled Wood” certificate for non compliance and when APRIL chose not to reinstate the process and instead continued to drain peat lands and clear potential HCVF without proper assessment in place 14, 15, 16 . Despite being in business for 17 years and having access to pulpwood supply concessions covering more than 10% of Riau province’s landmass (940,000 hectares), APRIL continues to rely on clearance of natural forest for its pulping business. The Indonesian Working Group on Forest Finance reported that APRIL and their competitor Asia Pulp & Paper pulped more natural forest wood than plantation grown fibre in Riau province as late as 2011 17 . This means APRIL’s public commitment to sustainable and natural fiber free operations after 2009 was pure sales talk; greenwashing to win back customers who had left the company due to its dismal sustainability record and customers who have been avoiding Indonesian paper products in general for the same reason.
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